


Destiny in a Museum

by kyoloren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Magic ???, Parallel Universes, Reincarnation, Rival Art Students, Soulmates, this fic is so weird y'all lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoloren/pseuds/kyoloren
Summary: Rey and Ben are two fashion-challenged art students on a day trip to a museum when they’re suspiciously locked inside. They find a weird, glowing box that washes them in blue light and they find themselves in another time, another place, watching different versions of themselves.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 26
Kudos: 113
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020





	Destiny in a Museum

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Reylo week on tumblr! Inspired by the “Reincarnation / Destiny / Soulmates” prompt and also by my very own randomly generated Reylo twitter prompt from a few weeks ago lol here. It’s a little weird, a little quirky, and I love it!
> 
> A big thanks to my beta, Clothilde (on twitter)!

-

Rey couldn’t have been more pissed about this. How did this even _happen_ anyway? Getting locked in a museum after hours was a thing that only happened in movies and they usually didn’t end well. Museums had _security guards_! Where were they?

Granted, it was pretty much her fault. She had been crying in the bathroom with her earbuds in, sitting on the tank of the toilet and her feet on the seat so whoever came to sweep the bathrooms had missed her. When she finally got out, the museum floor was dark. She turned on the flashlight on her phone and walked through the bizarrely quiet hallways.

Rounding a corner, she bumped into the chest of someone else and screamed, her exclamation echoing through the place.

“Fuck, shit, sorry!” came the response as he grabbed her elbows to keep her from falling to the floor. His phone lay on the floor, flashlight up, shining in her eyes.

It took a second for the two of them to recognize each other.

Ben Solo dropped her arms like they were on fire and Rey shuffled backward, turning her wide-eyed gaze into a glare.

“You!” Rey shot out. She crossed her arms as Ben leaned down to get his phone. He angled the flashlight away from her. 

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, clearly ignoring her tone.

_He_ was the reason she was crying in the bathroom in the first place. She was thankful for the lack of lighting so he couldn’t see how red and puffy her eyes were. “Why do you care?” she snapped.

She couldn’t really tell in the bright light and shadows if he looked annoyed or hurt. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Rey glared at him again, the light catching the tears caught in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about it if he was going to pretend he didn’t know. Her feelings were still hurt and she just wanted to get out of here. “Why are _you_ in here?” she changed the subject, poking a finger at his black and white striped shirt, the white stripes being leopard print. She hated how much she liked it and the fact that she wanted to fix the collar that was folded wrong. And she absolutely loathed the way it matched her own black and white and grey calico dress the most.

“I was looking for you,” Ben said, glancing around. The museum was eerily quiet and still. They were in a corner of the Neoclassicism room. 

Rey huffed. “Where is the security?” She took a sweeping look around the room. Closest, there was an Angelica Kauffman and a Jean-Baptiste Debret. 

“I don’t know.” Ben held his phone out in front of him and swept it around, keeping the intense beam off the paintings. “This is really weird.”

Rey walked forward, trying to ignore her suddenly sweaty palms and the way the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “We should just…I’m sure there’s an emergency exit.”

“Okay,” Ben agreed and they started walking through the room.

The museum was big, and it seemed bigger even at night with all the lights turned off. Some rooms had short sofas in the middle to easily sit and take in the artwork around you. Just hours earlier they had been doing that with the rest of their college class. Now, with the deep shadows and their footsteps being the loudest thing in the place, it was really creepy.

Rey didn’t even move away when her arm kept brushing against Ben’s even though she was determined to hate him today.

“What was that?” Ben asked once they’d entered a wide open space where statues ranging from 300BC to mid twentieth century stood on podiums.

They stopped walking and Rey’s heart beat faster as the shadows of mostly humanoid statues ran across the walls. And then she heard it: a sort of light and airy _whirring_ , like an engine but somehow more organic.

Ben took a step forward.

“Ben,” Rey hissed. He walked forward again and Rey clutched her phone to her chest. “ _Wait!_ ” She ran up behind him and grabbed his arm. “What are you _doing_?”

“I’m gonna go see what it is.”

“Why? This is how people die.”

“In movies. This is real life, Rey.” He sounded confident but that really didn’t mean anything. He always sounded confident, even when he was wrong. It always (almost always) rubbed her the wrong way.

She debated staying where she was, but being alone was even worse, so she stepped behind him, grabbed onto the back of his shirt and shuffled along. If anything bad was there, he would meet it first. Which she was totally, one hundred percent okay with.

“I swear to God, if we get murdered,” she muttered as they stepped into the next room.

It was as dark as the rest of the museum. Big wall-sized murals covered two walls in classic fifteenth century design and in the middle of the room was a box.

It was hovering in the air, over the square cushioned seats. The humming was coming from it.

Rey peeked around Ben’s shoulder. “What is that?”

“How that hell should I know?” Ben retorted in a whisper.

Rey stepped out from behind him and stared at the box. Things didn’t hover in the real world unless they were a humming bird or a helicopter. And she was scared, for sure, but also intrigued. 

“I think we should go,” Ben said after a beat, taking a step back and reaching toward her shoulder to bring her with him. 

The box chose that moment to crack open. Blue light suddenly escaped through geometric shaped cracks along the surface. Rey gasped and reached behind her, groping around for Ben’s hand. She found it and held fast, rooted to the spot, her cell phone hanging by her side, forgotten.

This wasn’t happening. Things in the real world didn’t hover and glow. Rey’s grip on Ben’s hand tightened as the black surface of the box moved away from the blue glowing center. It hurt to look at but she couldn’t look away either.

As if the thing had eyes or was sentient, she _felt_ it looking at her. She gasped and tried to turn away but the light brew brighter and washed over both her and Ben. Everything felt cold and hot, her skin prickling. She didn’t open her eyes. But then everything settled and she felt solid earth under her feet.

She cracked open one of her eyes. The scene before them was not right. They weren’t in the museum anymore. They were on…a ship? There were big metal walls all around them, though they were squared off and not rounded. And she couldn’t hear the sound of water against the sides, nor feel the usual sway.

“I told you the last time was the _last time_.”

Rey’s brows knitted together. That was _her voice_ , but it wasn’t coming from her. She looked over and saw that Ben was standing there next to her, still holding her hand. He glanced down at her, equally as confused.

Just then, _they_ walked around the corner. Rey, in natural colors, tan and green and brown, something long and shiny hanging off her belt. Ben was older and he was wearing brown pants tucked into boots, an off-white tunic shirt and a brown jacket. They didn’t seem to notice the intruders.

“But it works so well,” this other Ben insisted, jogging to get ahead of Rey, walking backward to face her. “Pirates have easily bendable wills.”

Rey and Ben followed these duplicates of themselves like they were ghosts moving through the world, unseen and unheard.

This other Rey scoffed as they entered a bit wide hangar bay. A peculiar looking ship sat there. “The Jedi wouldn’t approve,” other Rey told him, a smile tugging on her face. 

“Since when are you a Jedi?”

Rey glanced up at Ben and mouthed “What’s a Jedi?” He just shrugged and then his eyes sort of bugged out and his cheeks got pink as the other Ben and Rey got close and then they _kissed_.

It was weird to watch yourself kiss. And were they really _them_? Did Rey look like that when she kissed Ben? How had she never noticed how big his hands were compared to her waist?

Before either of them could say anything, a feeling like a hook around their abdomens pulled them forward through blackness. Rey closed her eyes again, this time turning against Ben as wind buffeted against them. He squeezed her hand as the scene settled again and they observed yet another version of themselves:

_This Rey was dressed in black, her eyes rimmed in red. The corridor she stood in was spotless, black shining like mirrors, bright white lights surrounding her. She walked with a purpose, almost too hurried. If she wasn’t so graceful she may have stumbled._

_She moved with sure steps passed numerous people dressed in military uniforms, who didn’t meet her eye and didn’t speak to her. She ignored them all and continued. In no time she was standing before a door that did not immediately open. Lifting a hand holding a single silver ring on the middle finger, she pressed a code into a datapad next to the door and it slid open._

_Ben was inside what turned out to be a holding cell. He was younger here than in the last, vibrant with fight within him. He was dressed in layered robes. “I knew you’d come,” he said, eyes a little awestruck at the sight of her._

_Rey stepped into the room and the door cut them off from the corridor. “You shouldn’t have come here, Solo. You should know better.” Her lips, stained red, curled into a smirk. She leaned down, stroking a finger along his jaw._

_“I do, but here I am.” A light charisma made him relax backward. His eyes flickered to the long metal weapon at her side._

_Rey scoffed and unhooked it, placing it on the bench beside him. “Next time we do this in my quarters. I’m no peasant,” she demanded, voice soft but deadly as she gripped his chin and kissed him like she wanted to devour him._

And the scene changed again, swirling through black and blue and landing them on soft, grassy land…

_A castle, there was a castle in the distance. They were in fields, not of crops, but of wildflowers. Someone was running toward them…it was Rey, again, this time with long hair loosely braided and wearing a long dress of lovely soft green, the sleeves dragging over the flowers as she lifted her skirt to not trip._

_There was not fear in her, but chagrin as she reached the edge of the tree line. Ben appeared suddenly over the hill, coming from the castle. He was dressed in richer fabrics, his hair cut trimly around his ears, his waistcoat flying open. “Rey, Rey, wait!” he yelled, reaching the trees quickly. He managed to catch up to her and grabbed her wrist to stop him._

_“Please let me go,” she said, voice raw and emotional. Ben released her wrist, but neither of them moved away. “I don’t know why I thought…I’m so embarrassed, I can’t ever face them again.”_

_“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” Ben said, earnestly. “I promise you that.”_

_“Ben…you can’t say things like that.” Rey pressed her palms together and pointed her fingers at him. “You’re a prince, you cannot throw all of that away for me.”_

_“Can’t I? My cousin can take the throne. I don’t want it.”_

_Rey dropped her arms, exasperated. “You say all of these things and yet I don’t know what I was thinking in believing you.”_

_“I have never, would never, lie to you.” Ben stopped forward and took her hands between his. He lifted them to his mouth and gently kissed her fingertips. “I would give everything up to stay by your side.”_

_“You’re just saying that. What could I possibly offer? I’m no one.”_

_“Not to me.”_

Another shift. Rey could feel it coming now, bracing herself. Somewhere during the shifts, Ben’s arm wound around her shoulders and hers was around his back. She didn’t hate it. She was also thoroughly confused and a little sad the more they saw.

_It was cold and icy, lifeless. The big stone cathedral was starting to crumble, dust and debris everywhere. And there was nothing but cold and pain. Ben struggled to drag himself along the ground toward Rey’s lifeless body._

The Rey of the real world didn’t want to watch this, the ache in her chest growing wide like a chasm but whatever magic was doing this wouldn’t let her close her eyes.

_Ben lifted Rey into his lap, her body limp. He searched around for help, but there was no one there. He couldn’t see the ghosts of this other Rey and Ben. He hugged Rey close, making a choice. He healed her, feeding her his life force. There was no point in him being here and her being gone._

_Rey woke with a small gasp, warm returning to her skin. “Ben!” she said, sitting up and reaching toward his face. The moment was so tender that the other Rey and Ben felt as if they were intruding. “You came…you came for me.”_

_Ben nodded, trembling. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”_

_She just smiled and kissed him, unable to contain herself. Everything would be fine, now that he was here. She didn’t care where they were in the universe, her life would be whole with him._

“Make it stop, make it stop,” Rey whispered, no sound coming out of her mouth as they were tugged to yet another place, yet another time. Ben said nothing and she was beginning to wonder if he was really even here or if this was some sort of nightmare.

_A huge wave crashed across hard wood, soaking the deck and then disappearing across the other side. “Blast it!” a voice yelled, Rey’s voice, tugging and holding hard on the ship’s wheel. She was dressed in trousers and a tunic, a long canvas jacket soaked, her hair drenched and whipping in the wind._

_The ship careened into another wave, though the sky before them was beginning to grow brighter. Rey yelled orders and the deckhands scrambled. The ocean, finally, gracefully, settled and Rey let go of her hold on the wheel. Her hands were gloveless, the skin ripped and shredded. She hissed as the salt water stung the open wounds._

_“Captain.” It was Ben, coming up the side stairs. His eyes softened when he spotted her hands. “Captain, there’s a straight course ahead. We should be set.”_

_“Good.” Rey nodded at him and looked over her deck. Crewmen and women scattered around, checking stores and tying off ropes._

_“Permission to look after your hands, Captain?” Ben said softly, dragging her attention to him. He painted quite the picture there, broad shouldered, white shirt stuck to his torso from the storm, hair as equally wet as anything on the ship._

_“Aye,” Rey said softly and they walked down and disappeared into the Captain’s quarters at the back of the ship. There was enough light to see by, but Ben lit a hanging lantern’s candle anyway. Rey stripped off her soaked coat, revealing her shirt soaked through to her skin._

_Ben moved around her space as well as he moved around any other part of the ship. Maybe more so. He found a bottle of alcohol and some dry cloth. Rey sat at the desk and he stood before her, taking her hands in his._

_“You should be more careful,” he murmured, swiping across her palm with a bit of stinging alcohol. Rey grabbed the bottle and took a drink. “You have leather gloves.”_

_“I know. But I didn’t have the time.” She hissed. Ben kept going, cleaning and then wrapping her hands and fingers with skill._

_“We can’t lose our Captain, not with the reward riding on this shipment,” Ben said. He finished with her hands and then simply looked at her face, tanned and freckled from years at sea. “_ I _cannot lose you, my Captain.”_

_Rey got to her feet and put one of her wrapped palms against his face. “You won’t. And I cannot lose you either, my love,” she said softly, planting a kiss on his lips and then tucking her face against the slope of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her wet, salty hair._

This time, when they stopped, they were on solid ground, inside, and it was dark. Before them sat a large metal box that was closing up around a blue swirl of light. It closed quickly and then…disappeared in a flash. 

They were back in the museum. Rey collapsed right there on the floor, nauseous and gripping the smooth wooden ground. “Oh my god, oh my god,” she muttered. Ben stumbled over to the sofa seats. He didn’t make it, sliding to the floor and leaning back against them. “What was that?” she gasped out.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Ben said, sounding equally as shaken as she was. Rey sucked in deep breaths to calm herself before she could look up. Her phone was on the ground, the flashlight up so she could see Ben. He was sitting there, head in his hands. She crawled over to him and sat on her legs in front of him. 

“Ben,” she said softly. He muttered something about going crazy and she pried his hands away from his face. She found that she didn’t quite hate him any more. 

“That was _impossible_. What the fuck,” he said, voice clear, ringing through the empty museum.

Rey kept holding onto his hands. They were warm and shaking. “I know. I…I don’t get it. But they were…they were _us_ I think.”

“They looked like us. For the most part.”

He was right. Each one was just…slightly different. But they were unmistakably _Ben and Rey_. “It was that box…it must be…magic? Alien technology?”

Ben laughed, shocked by her suggestion. She found herself grinning at him, thankful to have broken through his panic. “It must have been.”

“Do you think…I could feel everything happening. I was confused at first but each time it was…easier to figure out what was going on.”

“Yeah. It was weird, like watching a dream. Familiar but not.” He looked down at where their hands were clasped. A tear slid down his face, barely visible as it disappeared into his halfhearted attempt to grow facial hair. “Fuck, that one in the cathedral…”

Rey felt her heart tighten at the thought. “Do you think that really happened? All of that?”

“I don’t know. If it did…I guess I need to rethink my entire fucking life. Past lives…parallel universes.”

Rey could tell he was spiraling again and scooted forward. She dropped his hands and took his head in her hands. “Ben…if it was…we were together in all of them.”

Ben frowned. “We were,” he agreed, a little awed.

“We were,” she echoed. His hands had found their way to her waist and she glanced at his lips.

“Rey…I’m sorry about earlier,” Ben said, the words suddenly falling from his tongue like he couldn’t stop if he tried. “I shouldn’t have argued with you in front of Professor Holdo and I didn’t mean what I said about your analysis being dull and shortsighted. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

They’d been bickering and kissing for three months now and Rey wasn’t sure why she kept coming back to him but then he looked at her like he was looking at her right now and she couldn’t help it.

And now… _now_ , maybe she knew why. It was the universe’s way of pushing them together. No matter what, in whatever life they found themselves in.

“You are an idiot,” Rey said, brushing her thumbs against his face. “But you’re my idiot. Just don’t call me stupid again, okay? I know you were only saying that because I made fun of your opinion about Degas last class, but it still hurt. And I’m sorry, too.”

“Can we just agree to disagree about art? That way we’re all covered and we don’t need to keep arguing.”

“Yes,” Rey nodded. “I can live with that. Do you want to be my boyfriend? Legitimately I mean. I don’t mind making out in random closets but—“

She couldn’t finish because he leaned forward and kissed her, pulling her into his lap. She kissed him in return, dragging her hands through his hair and pressing herself closer.

They were so intertwined with each other that they didn’t even notice the flashlight bob into the room and only parted, a little dazed, when a security guard yelled at them. “Hey! What the hell are you doing in here?” The guard walked over, flashlight pointed at their faces.

“We were locked in,” Rey said, knowing Ben’s mind was probably blank with panic. She quickly became highly aware that she was in Ben’s lap.

“Uh-huh. Just…get yourself together and I’ll walk you out,” the guard said, waving the flashlight beam.

Rey scrambled to her feet and grabbed her phone and Ben’s off the floor where they’d fallen. Ben was slower to get up. Rey took his hand and flashed a smile at the guard. “Are you going to call the police? I swear we were here earlier with Professor Holdo’s class from Alderaan College, we really were locked in.”

The guard guided them toward the front doors, where they flashed a badge at a security scanner and unlocked the doors. “I believe you,” the woman told them as the doors opened. She gave Rey a small smile and Rey’s eyes widened when she saw a flash of unearthly blue from behind the woman’s pupils.

Ben tugged Rey outside into the cold and the guard secured the building.

“Do you believe in magic?” Rey asked as Ben continued to tug on her hand and pull her down the wide expanse of steps to the sidewalk.

“After tonight? Yeah, I think so.”

Rey stopped walking and Ben nearly tripped, her grip tight on his hand forcing him to stop. He turned and faced her. She had a frown on her face and she looked like she was about to start crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Ben asked, stepping closer.

“No…nothing. I just…I think it’s hitting me all over again.”

Ben detangled their fingers and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s just get back to the school and we’ll figure it out another night. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

Rey didn’t argue, cuddling against his side as they walked toward the bus stop. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she knew that she wouldn’t stop dreaming of blue lights for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate/parallel lives shown in order:  
> Force Sensitive!Rey and Smuggler!Ben  
> Dark!Rey and Jedi!Ben  
> Medieval Prince!Ben and Commoner!Rey  
> Canon SW verse  
> Pirates!
> 
> I also really played into the color blue in connection to Ben's blue butterflies and the Force. Don't @ me lol


End file.
